Why immortality is not good for you

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If you are given the chance to be immortal, would you grab it or refuse it? Sounds very tempting. Just imagine what you could do if you don't die. For most people, Death is their biggest fear, and we spend a lot, just to live longer and feel young. If we have immortality we fear none, we can do anything as we wish.

With technology going beyond limits, the science of cryonics and cryonic suspension could probably make immortality possible. Or maybe human cloning.

If immortality is possible, then it could be worse than death. It is not good for you and here is why:

You will outlive everyone in your Family.

A family is one of the main reasons why we want to live longer. A spouse, children, grandchildren, cousins, are our nucleus of life.

If you were immortal, you would outlived everyone you loved in your family. Family gives us a sense of belonging, they are the ones we shared our triumphs, failures and those especial moments together. Living alone without a family is like a slow death.

Seeing them get old and pass away will be painful. As more and more of your family members leave this world, some part of you will also be missing. In the end, eternal life will also give you eternal sadness.


Mental Stress

Immortality would allow you time to mentally process a never-ending barrage of life situations and circumstances. But thinking about the reason you are here, dealing with continuous death of the people around you, feelings of abandonment, despair, and witnessing generation after generation of war and human error would take its toll.

Experiencing this onslaught of life events would cause extreme mental stress. Your mind could slip into a state where you are subconsciously trying to escape the never-ending whirl of life, losing your grip on reality. Dealing with so many traumatic life circumstances could eventually break the strongest of minds, causing you to fear that if you do lose your mental grip, no one will be there for you to pick up the pieces.

 Mental stress causes you to be easily confused, forgetful and fosters a negative attitude. A chronic state of mental stress also causes anxiety, depression and social withdrawal. You need to maintain a healthy mindset in order to function, be productive and absorb new ideas. Without these things depression ensues, with the possible desire to commit suicide to the end the depression and stress; but the inability to do so as you are immortal.

Lack Sense of Purpose.

Immortality has no end. When you know you will outlast everything and everyone, you may feel any purpose is a useless. Our sense of purpose drives us and gives meaning to our lives. Because we know our purpose, it keeps us going and inspires us to explore to discover ourselves more.

If you are immortal, the purpose of a healthy lifestyle would be meaningless. Your purpose of travelling would be unexcited and will be boring to you because "you have been there, done that" already. Besides of having no purpose in life, you will also stop caring about other people.

Just like in School, if you have a deadline for your project, you eventually do what it takes to finish it before deadline. If there aren't any deadline, you just relax and do nothing. Same with immortality, because you know you are endless, everything seems to be none important to you any more. Without a purpose in life, you are just a walking dead man.


Disinterest in Socializing

Life as an immortal would change who you are, in time. Watching every generation die would have significant affect on you and how you view others. Finding people someone like you would be hard and you will have a hard time connection with other people.

"No Man is an Island"

You may need to keep your immortality a secret from others, significantly hindering the possibility of forming a close relationship. You likely will avoid becoming involved with others, after the loss of so many over the years that you cared for. This can cause you to become cold emotionally out of necessity, and live reclusively. Hardening your self against emotional pain and living a solitary life is no life for anyone.

Human beings draw on the strength from others to validate us and support us through the ups and downs of life.


Ongoing Financial Burden

If you are immortal, you have time in your hands. You could go on a travel around the world, or buy anything you want. But all of these things that mostly makes us happiness needs money. You are not instantly rich and you have the same bank account. 

You will provide yourself financially through the many, many years you are going to live. Intelligence is also the same, unless you take initiative to improve it. You certainly have the time to further your education, go to college as many times as you like…but you have to pay for it. You still have to maintain a job and pay your bills. 

There would soon be no family to turn to in times of need, so you must stay financially independent. You would not have “job burn out” once – but repeatedly. Even if you changed occupations regularly in different areas, being accountable for your financial welfare indefinitely would become a burden. There would be no goal of eventual retirement for you, as you would have the “gift” of immortality.


Decline of Personal Morals

We place value on having moral standards because being moral and decent is a requirement for human survival. Morals keep people from harming others and their selves, allow us to live peacefully, refrain from destructive behavior and are good for interpersonal relationships. If you were immortal, would you see the value in keeping your moral standards, or would you feel they didn’t apply to you? Your perception of the value of morals would likely change over the years, causing you to see nothing wrong with anything you feel like doing. 

The need to do something different, relieve boredom or make easy money could drive you to things you never would have done before immortality. With so much time to focus on your self, your character could turn cold and selfish. You may not feel a strong sense of right and wrong; reasoning there is no “judgment or consequence” for wrongdoing.


Lose Sense of Identity

Your identity, your sense of self, who are and who you want to be is intertwined with what stage of life you are in. In a normal life span, you are evolving with each life stage. Each passing stage is a marker to measure the success of these goals. The goals, values and connections that define who you are during these normal life stages are absent with immortality. Your beliefs morph and change through the years, until you may not believe in anything. With no stage of life to progress to, the years would run together and have no significance, until you are left the question of who you really are. The person you knew yourself to be as a mortal would be no more, your goals having no urgency or defining you as they did. A mortal can look back on their life and know who they are by the path they have chosen; an immortal looks back on so many years of life they become a blur. Your sense of identify will also be blurred when no life path points to who you are as a person.

Resentment Towards Others

The thought of being immortal conjures up the illusion that life would be wonderful if you lived forever, as there would be no fear of dying. The beginning of being immortal would feel like you were special and others were doomed. But as years progress in your immortal state, you watch the people around you, resenting their ability to form close ties, to love, fearless of what the future brings, to live with appreciation and awe of the things that you have come to think of as mundane and commonplace. 

You watch them have children, go shopping, obsess about their weight, buy homes and build their lives with anticipation. You have the weight of centuries on your shoulders, while they are oblivious to the pain, heartache and experiences you have endured. Their lives seem light, happy and free compared to yours. They grow up together and have memories that bond them. They savor family, moments and events; knowing their time is limited on earth and these things may not come again. 

You see the excitement of a new experience in their faces and anticipation in their voices. And you miss being that way, and know you likely will never be again. Jealousy of the blissful naivety of their lives would cause resentment to be harbored.

Witness All of Mankind’s Mistakes and Earth’s Demise

People always speculate about the future of mankind. Human error is inevitable. There are all types of chaotic disasters to live through, such as economic ruin, erosion of resources due to pollution, the sun eventually burning out, or even a meteor colliding with earth. You will have much more time to wait around for these things to happen than a mere mortal. Mistakes, greed, and poor judgment abound.

 Immortality will give you a front row seat to the tragedies and disasters born from mankind’s imperfections. Man is not satisfied to simmer contently in the comfortable world we have made for ourselves. The world that you enjoy as an immortal could come tumbling down in years, decades or centuries. It is inevitable that at some point a major catastrophe will occur. War can cause destruction that the earth may never recover from, obliterating most of the human race and leaving the world a barren wasteland. 

You would witness this anguish and live through it all, possibly being the only one left standing. You wouldn’t be living at this point, but merely existing. With everything and everyone gone, you would have a lonely existence – assuming you still have your sanity.

[source: akorra.com]
[image: Google]